Zapatero's Challenges in Spain

...Two days before the general election, a Socialist Party (PSOE) municipal councilman, Isaías Carrasco, was assassinated in his Basque hometown of Mondragón in front of his family...

...Spain has yet to take stock of the darker moments of its Francoist history...

...WHAT MAY PROVE trickiest to handle, however, is the environment...

...Aznar’s accusations, and the PP’s inability to distance itself from his mistakes, have damaged the PP’s credibility in the eyes of Basques and non-Basques...

...The rebate looks like it will be swallowed by inflation, up to 4.6 per cent in March from 2.1 per cent a year earlier...

...Spain’s Catholic Church has not digested the reforms introduced during Zapatero’s first term, such as the legalization of marriage and adoption by homosexual couples...

...Spain’s ungentle climate is unlikely to improve with global warming...

...Over 75 per cent of the country’s 35 million eligible voters cast their ballots, and 43.6 per cent of them rejected a return to “law and order” by backing the PSOE, while the PP garnered 40.1 per cent...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes regularly for the NL on French and Spanish affairs...

...The Catalans’ goal is to move as close as possible to independence without breaking away from Spain...

...During the election campaign, Zapatero promised a $600 tax rebate for households that pay income tax, plus public investment to boost the construction industry...

...When terrorists linked to Al Qaeda simultaneously set off 10 bombs in four Madrid trains on March 11, 2004, three days before the previous general election, killing 192 people and injuring more than 1,700, Aznar sought to pin the attack on ETA rather than admit that it was a consequence of his proximity to Bush on the diplomatic and military fronts...

...Intensive agriculture on the arid hills of the eastern Mediterranean has accelerated land erosion and made demands on irrigation...

...On April 1, the Bank of Spain published revised forecasts that are lower than those it initially issued: The 2007 growth rate of 3.8 per cent is now expected to drop to 2.5 per cent in 2008 and 2.1 per cent in 2009, the lowest in 15 years...

...Landmarks such as the dictator’s mausoleum, in the sierra above Madrid, have been left intact and are the sites of what amount to annual pilgrimages on the anniversary of his death...

...Both will try to negotiate further devolution for their regions, despite already possessing extensive local powers...

...Millions of Spaniards have gone severely into debt to purchase the dream house or apartment that is seen as a yardstick of social and professional success: Sixty per cent of bank loans went in recent years to the building industry and private property buyers...

...For another, the Center-Right Catalan Convergence and Union Party (CiU) with 10 seats and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) with six thus hold the balance, leaving the government vulnerable...

...Throughout Spain the PP’s tendency to preach “law and order” has left a bitter taste in many mouths...

...A desalination plant near Barcelona is due to become operational by 2009, but it will not solve the overall problem...

...For several years now, the country has suffered from drought...

...But the Socialists, with 169 of Parliament’s 350 seats (five more than in 2004), have a weaker majority than they won four years ago...

...Those who took to the streets for marches in the past year were mostly very young and had no firsthand experience or personal memory of the Franco years...

...previously, political antagonism between Basques and non-Basque residents was intense...

...Eschewing this unhealthy dichotomy by voting for the Socialists was perhaps one of the strongest indications of a mature attitude toward democracy...

...deserted areas are gaining ground and summer forest fires add to them...

...This resulted in his defeat by the PSOE...

...The killing (for which ETA first claimed responsibility on April 1) resulted in the suspension of campaign rallies throughout the country as a sign of mourning...

...He is no doubt encouraged by the PSOE coming out ahead of the PNV in the Basque region for the first time...

...And it could act as a salutary reminder that where the environment is concerned there are no boundaries...

...After seeming to keep out of politics, the Catholic hierarchy, one of the pillars of Francoism, made a comeback in this election campaign, openly inviting voters to support the PP and its leader, Mariano Rajoy...

...Early strawberries, asparagus and other fruits and vegetables are being grown under plastic sheeting that shimmers like miles and miles of artificial lakes...

...Madrid deems the project financially and environmentally unviable...

...The Center-Left daily El País urged Zapatero to ensure that the fight against terrorism did not degenerate into a rejection of devolution...

...The weekly El Mundo called the outcome “a renewed endorsement of democracy...

...Without referring directly to Franco, the PP champions principles associated here with his era, involving nationhood, the family and marriage...

...The Basque nationalists, in contrast, wish to call a local referendum on self-determination...

...AND NOW, back to work,” the response of business daily Cinco Días to the election, underlined the main challenge facing the government: how to deal with Spain’s economic slowdown...

...The shortage of water on Spain’s Mediterranean coast is the worst since 1912, according to Jaime Palop, head of the national water board...

...Property sales slumped by 27 per cent in January 2008, and as elsewhere this has contributed to a banking crisis...

...Its relatively good but insufficient showing on March 9 may stem from a current nostalgia in some circles for “values” associated with the Franco regime that were swept away following his death in 1975, when King Juan Carlos steered the country toward democracy...

...Barcelona and its conurbation, totaling some 7 million inhabitants, have reached a critical situation...

...The real problems awaiting the government, though, may well lie in more global issues that pose new challenges at a time when it will have less parliamentary leverage than it enjoyed during the past four years...

...It could reach 8.3 per cent in 2008 and more than 9 per cent in 2009...

...Both Local and Global Zapatero’s Challenges in Spain By Janice Valls-Russell Madrid On March 9, Spanish voters elected Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to a second term...

...In recent months, it has also encouraged Spanish Catholics to demonstrate against abortion and even contraception...

...Between 2001 and 2004, Prime Minister José María Aznar, who led the P P, steered the country closer to America’s neoconservatives and followed President George W. Bush into Iraq...

...One of Zapatero’s first measures upon taking office in 2004 was pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq...

...Massive building in the past decade did not prevent an upward spiraling of prices that saw property values climb to levels close to those of neighboring France, while salaries tended to remain stable or even fell slightly as immigration brought a cheap labor force into the country...

...Zapatero read his triumph as an expression of the country’s wish to enter “a new phase without tension, ruling out confrontation and seeking a consensus on national issues...

...A “war over water” between the haves and have-nots of the precious liquid could prove to be more divisive than the ideological issues that have hitherto tended to weigh on Spanish politics...

...Further complicating matters is a probable increase of the unemployment rate, which had improved over the past decade...

...Increases in the cost of raw materials and oil are the main causes...

...By keeping Pedro Solbes as finance minister, Zapatero has indicated his intention to continue pursuing “the social pact” whereby trade unions and employers have reached agreements on salaries and conditions that have enabled the country to avoid labor conflicts...

...Local administration’s efforts to persuade the government to allow the transfer of water from the Ebro River have failed...

...The city is therefore contemplating other solutions, such as bringing water from Tarragona, to the south or Marseilles, to the northeast, by tanker vessels or special trains...

...Spain is heavily dependent on petroleum for energy, even though 10 per cent of its electricity is wind-generated...

...Elections reflected a sharp divide between those who supported independence and those who supported the nationalistic P P, which harks back to the “united Spain” General Francisco Franco ruled...

...He is certainly going to need all the consensual goodwill he can rally...

...For example, he announced that 150,000 low-rent apartments would be built...

...Fringe parties such as the erstwhile Communist United Left lost seats...

...Other external signs of affluence have also been hit: Car sales declined by a third in March, the largest drop in 15 years...

...The economy here is being seriously affected by the downturn that is sweeping from America across Europe...

...For one thing, the Popular Party took 154 seats (six more than in 2004...

...Their decision reflected a determination not to be intimidated by two pressures that have long plagued the country: violence by Basque separatist terrorists (ETA), and political meddling by the Catholic Church...

...Speculation that this would benefit the Center-Right Popular Party (PP), because it had accused the Socialists of being lax about Basque terrorism, proved unfounded...

...Zapatero is expected to offer yet more devolution in an effort to persuade them to drop the idea...